Will you be popping the cork at midnight for a New Year's champagne toast?

It is New Year’s Eve.

Tonight there will be numerous parties with guests drinking prodigious amounts of alcohol to ring in the New Year.

Which is why New Year’s Eve is sometimes referred to as “amateur night” for drinkers.

Unless they plan on staying home and watching re-runs of God-awful “Honey BooBoo” and her inbred, half-witted clan!

THAT requires a good, stiff drink. Several of them.

At midnight, various versions of ”Auld Lang Syne” will be played. People tend to get weepy at that song.

Perhaps it’s just the alcohol.

I am looking forward to the New Year, and I am not particularly nostalgic about the old one.

2013 was a major political year in Rochester, and not a particularly pleasant one, either, as such things go.

The Republicans maintained their control of the suburbs; the Democrats, the City of Rochester. The continuing urban-suburban split has been a major factor in this area’s decline, with both parties pointing the finger at the other.

But within the City of Rochester, the mayoral election revealed an equally dismal split within the Democratic Party. It also revealed the sordid depths to which people will go in the game of politics.

Because politics is like poker, and the stakes are power, privilege, prestige and big paychecks.

On the one side were the elitist Chardonnay Cabal which supported the election of the incumbent, Tom Richards, who sought to continue their employment by or connection to Citygov.

On the other was a true “grassroots campaign” supporting Lovely Warren, backed by the David Gantt wing of the Democratic Party.

In our Democratic “one party” city, when Lovely won the Democratic Primary election for mayor, that should have been an end ( for all effective purposes ) of the campaign.

But no.

Tom Richards still had the Independence line; his passive-aggressive behaviour after his defeat in the primary allowed the Chardonnay Cabal to ( surreptitiously ) resurrect his “astroturf” campaign, like thieves in the night.

The excuse of “following one’s conscience” came only after they were caught, equating that phrase with “the end justifies the means.” And the meanness.

All in all, it resembled some of the more sordid episodes of the Byzantine Empire’s history: corrupt, incompetant emperors; immoral, scheming empresses; plotting eunuchs.

Lovely won anyway, for all of their schemes.

Now they leave the center stage, looking shabby and deflated. Their reputations in shambles, their credibility shot and their integrity no longer being described as even dubious.

Lovely Warren will soon begin her administration of the City of Rochester, complete with a largely new staff. Whether or not Lovely and her crew can quickly repair the damage done to Rochester by the eight years of the Duffy/Richards administration has yet to be seen.

But change is as good as a vacation.

That’s good.

The incumbents for City Council and the School Board all won re-election.

That’s bad.

City Council will undoubtedly continue its bizarre habit of voting unanimously. Doing that precludes the need for mental exertion or enlightening public debate.

The School Board will continue in its unacknowledged goal of destroying the Rochester City School District. They have already accomplished making it the worst school system in New York State, and one of the worst in the whole nation. They haven’t got much farther to go.

Political scandals continue to plague the regime of Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks, only this time, rather than stopping at her office, they continued into her bedroom. Maggie’s attempts at self-investigation would be almost humorous if the corruption hadn’t been going on for years.

And before die-hard Democrats begin to salivate over Maggie’s plight, what about Bob Duffy?

Rochester’s ex-police chief, ex-mayor and now lieutenant governor also has come under public scrutiny, involving some shady deals with the Rochester Business Alliance. As Duffy was not beneficial to Rochester as mayor, and even less so as lieutenant governor, even Albany doesn’t see him as particularly powerful or influential.

Rochester still is perceived as a violent city, and is the “Murder Capital” of New York State, which is not completely the fault of the police department. But recent actions of some police officers in Rochester has made most people, especially members of the black community, wary of them. Certainly there is a great, if not complete, lack of respect for its leadership.

Of course, why do some people feel that the thugs, drug dealers and petty criminals who roam increasinly larger areas of Rochester are “anti-heroes?”

Rochester is also one of the poorest cities in the United States.

Our economic base has declined. Thousands of jobs leave this area every year. When our fearless leaders squeal that a few hundred low paying jobs are coming into our area, they act as though this is the greatest miracle since the Resurrection.

It hasn’t been.

Our neighborhoods continue to decay, with non-resident slumlords reigning supreme in many areas of Rochester. Abandoned homes become eyesores; when torn down, the empty lots become garbage dumps, NOT neighborhood gardens or green spaces. This also adversely affects our property tax base, since they are removed from the tax rolls, forcing the rest of us to take up the slack.

At the same time, Citygov has been Hell-bent on creating a toney downtown neighborhood, with developers getting enormous amounts of tax breaks, grants, loans and PILOT plans that also wreak havoc on our property tax base.

Lovely Warren understands all of this. She is also intelligent enough to know that people are expecting quick fixes after being neglected for so long.

Undoubtedly, her honeymoon as mayor will be a short one.

At midnight, tonight, I will wish all of my readers, friends or foes, a hopeful and brave New Year.

But Rochester still is alive, though doing poorly. Rochester has culture. It has live theatres, art museums, music. We have parks and festivals that draw hundreds of thousands of people here yearly.

We have powerful neighborhood associations, filled with people who weekly give hours of their time attempting to make their neighborhoods better at no cost to Citygov.

In fact, it has frequently seemed that Citygov’s appointees exist solely to thwart neighborhoods in their attempts to turn around their downward spiral.

I look forward to the coming year, 2014, not because it offers proof of change in Rochester, but simply because it offers hope.

And to all my readers, whether they be friends or foes, I will raise my glass of champagne tonight and wish you all a “Hopeful and Brave New Year!”

I have made worse toasts than that!

And if you are out and about tonight, drink responsibly. Drive carefully or call a cab.

Rochester's incumbent mayor, Tom Richards: Endorsed by the teachers' union because he will not interfere with the worst school system in New York State!

Nobody expected Rochester’s incumbent mayor, Tom Richards, NOT to get the endorsement of the local labor unions.

It made good sense; it was extremely logical.

Developers contributed heavily to Richards’ re-election campaign. Richards promptly proposes legislation allowing the developers to do their projects. The City Council promptly rubber stamps Richards’ proposed legislation. The trades unions promptly get contracts to build these projects.

And so the vicious cycle continues, because there are a good many projects, in order to keep that campaign cash flowin’.

Everyone ends up scratching everyone else’s back!

It was the teachers’ union endorsing Richards that seemed a bit strange…at least at first glance.

The Mayor of Rochester has no say in the affairs of the Rochester City School District or the School Board. Unless, of course, the mayor intends to support mayoral control of the schools, which has now become a dead letter in Rochester.

Or the mayor calls for more charter schools, as mayoral candidate the Honorable Lovely A. Warren, Esquire, President of Rochester City Council has done.

Charter schools are public schools, but beyond the control of the School Board and the teachers’ union, which is why both of them resist it.

As Richards has indicated no interest in changing anything about the Rochester City School District, the endorsement from the teachers’ union can be seen for what it is: a reward ( or bribe ) to keep Richards’ nose out of their business.

Such an endorsement has no other purpose.

It is even more telling when one considers the statements made by two guests of honor at the Charlotte Community Association’s monthly meeting last night. Mr. Malik Evans, president of Rochester’s School Board ( at $30 grand a year for one of the best-paying part-time jobs in the city ) and Dr. Bolgen Vargas, Rochester’s Superintendent of Schools ( at about a quarter of a million a year ).

They were expecting a pleasant walk on the beach last night, but immediately went on the defensive when asked about Rochester’s status as the worst school district in New York State and the dismal graduation rates for black and Hispanic males.

Both men claimed that such statements were incorrect; that the data used to arrive at such conclusions was flawed; that there are many places, even in the suburbs, that are worse than the Rochester City School District.

Even more unimpressive was the claim that the low graduation figures were the result of doing away with local diplomas and concentrating purely on Regents diplomas.

Many, if not all, suburban school districts did away with local diplomas decades ago.

And while there are still some “good” schools in Rochester, successful programs have not been introduced across the board in all of the city schools.

Dr. Vargas was correct in one thing: technology has changed since he was a child. But the Rochester City School district has failed to account for this change, and has been failing to do so for decades.

Mr. Evans and Dr. Vargas were also unimpressed by charter schools, for the obvious reason that neither of them cut any ice there.

And, just as an aside, according to New York State Law, Dr. Vargas is NOT qualified to be a School Superintendent. He was granted a waiver for such requirements when he was hired by the School Board to be Superintendent.

Which does a lot to explain the mess that Rochester’s schools are in.

However, we were told that things are not as bad as they really are in our school system. And that they need more help from the community.

Perhaps they have forgotten that there are various literacy groups in Rochester that are attempting to do just that. Perhaps they have forgotten that there are programs in our public library system designed with that purpose in mind. Perhaps they have forgotten the Rotary Club’s literacy committee?

And the teachers’ union endorsed Richards for the express reason that he will not interfere in the Rochester City School District!

Democrat Mia Hodgins: disgusted with the Rochester School Board making our school system the worst in New York State!

That’s right.

Democrat Mia Hodgins will be running for a seat on Rochester’s School Board on the Republican line.

Ms. Hodgins, a bright, energetic young woman, has long been disgusted with the School Board, whose antics have turned the Rochester City School District into the worst in New York State.

The incumbents seeking re-election to the School Board are neither embarrassed nor ashamed of that fact.

Ms. Hodgins did not get the Democratic endorsement to run on their ticket.

This is not surprising.

Despite frequent references to “Civics 101,” and the theoretical process of how politics works, the reality is that the various Democratic committees regard Citygov as a closed club and favors the incumbents, competent or otherwise, seeking re-election. Which is why, of the nine city offices up for grabs, eight went to the incumbents.

The exception was Cynthia Elliott from the School Board.

In fact, nothing outside of death, infirmity, scandal or moving out of Rochester will convince the leadership in those committees to consider fresh blood in office. That is because they consider themselves to be part of the status quo, which they seek to preserve.

It gives the our elected officials and politically appointed Citygov employees an almost incestuous and inbred feel, resembling “Honey Boo Boo.”

So Ms. Hodgins sought out the Republicans. The path to political advancement in Rochester and elsewhere is never without oddity.

State Senator Joe Robach, County Legislator Carmen Gamina and Chili Town Supervisor David Dunning all started out as Democrats. After they won their respective offices the first time, they promptly re-registered as Republicans.

Some Democrats in Rochester have referred to them as traitors, while forgetting the political flip-flopping of Rochester’s last two “Democratic” mayors.

Bob Duffy moved back into Rochester solely to become its police chief. Duffy then became a Democrat only to run for high political office.

Rochester’s current mayor became a Democrat in the fall of 2010, thirty seconds before Duffy appointed him deputy mayor. That conversion took place solely for Richards to mount the mayoral throne as Duffy’s proxy.

Billing Richards as a “Progressive Democrat” ( for the last few weeks, anyway ) seems to be nothing more than a marketing ploy to sell a product that does not exist.

It does suggest that the end justifies the means.

Green Party luminary Vinessa Buckland sought political office in the Town of Chili in 2011…on the Democratic line!

If politicians and elected officials are without scruple, they are also remarkably without prejudice. They will do whatever is necessary to get re-elected, shady or not.

For instance, three of the incumbents seeking re-election to Rochester’s City Council ( and all five of them got the official nod ) are on both the incumbent mayor AND the Honorable Lovely A. Warren’s petitions. This means that Carolee Conklin, Dana Miller and Loretta Scott have the campaign volunteers from BOTH camps getting them signatures, guaranteeing them a place on the primary ballot.

This suggests that they simply don’t care who gets to be mayor, as long as they get re-elected.

This historical word for this fence-sitting is “Mugwump.”

Given these facts, it is hard to accuse Ms. Hodgins of anything sinister.

The Rochester Republican Committee: A political corpse that doesn't know it is dead yet!

However, the question is why Ms. Hodgins would tie herself to the “Elephant’s Graveyard” that is the Rochester Republican Committee.

Well, owing to the Rochester Republican Committee’s advanced state of decrepitude, it won’t be running any candidates of their own. Ms. Hodgins will not have to face a primary election. And, if Ms. Hodgins gets enough Republican signatures on her petitions, she will be guaranteed, in sole prominence, the Republican line in November in the general election.

This suits the Rochester Republican Committee just fine. It can delude itself into pretending that it is still a political force in Rochester.

In fact, Ms. Hodgins’ candidacy underscores the fact that the Rochester Republican Committee has sunk to the level of a small third party. It has become a corpse that doesn’t know that it is dead yet.

For Ms. Hodgins, the negative side of the balance sheet should be perfectly clear: Democrats outnumber Republicans in Rochester more than five to one.

And everyone tends to vote straight party tickets, rarely looking beyond the D or R in front of the candidates’ names. Which has accounted for the incredible number of imbeciles that are repeatedly elected and re-elected to office, whether in the Democratic City of Rochester or Monroe county’s Republican controlled towns!

Ms. Hodgins has her work cut out for her.

But I will vote for her, regardless of what party line she is on, which is more than I can say for any of the incumbents, especially those on the School Board.

Rochester's City Council passing the School Board's budget: a reward for producing the worst school district in New York State!

On Tuesday, June 18, Rochester City Council passed the budget for the worst school system in New York State: the Rochester City School District.

Unlike the suburban school districts, we, the residents and taxpayers of Rochester, are not allowed to vote on our school budget.

Which makes some sense. After all, we continually return to office the same people who have helped ruin it, which isn’t flattering to us.

To do the current mayor, Tom Richards, one bit of justice ( and only just one ), he has no authority over the members of the School Board or of the Rochester City School District. We can’t blame Richards for the antics of the School Board, which resemble nothing so much as Dante’s Inferno as staged by the Marx Brothers.

Nor does the School Board appear to be particularly ashamed or embarrassed by presiding over the worst school system in New York State.

They each get $23,000 per year ( the School Board President, Dr. Malik Evans, gets $30,000 ) for the second best paying part-time job in Rochester.

Some members have hoped to use their notoriety as a springboard to higher political office.

Incumbents Jose Cruz and Van White, seeking re-election to the School Board this year, both sought to run for the State Assembly in the last three years. Both were defeated, in keeping with The Peter Principle: they had risen to their level of incompetence, and will rise no higher, but will remain where they are, continuing to make a mess around them.

In previous years, various City Councilmen have voted against the School Board’s budget. This was NOT done because it was a bad budget, nor to openly punish the incompetents who sit on the School Board. It was done to protest the $117 plus million dollars that are mandated by the state for the Rochester City School District, over which nobody seems to have any control: City Council, the School Board, the mayor.

Such protests, knowing that the majority on City Council would pass the budget anyway, comes under the heading of “Romantic Self Indulgence,” labeling the protesters as rebels without a clue.

Of course, we, the taxpayers who cannot vote on the School Board’s budget, are treated by City Council to several different reasons why they pass the budget, year after year, no matter how bad our city schools are getting.

One excuse is that City Council MUST pass a balanced budget. For better ( rarely ) or for worse ( usually ), the School Board’s budget always balances.

Another excuse is if City Council DOESN’T pass the School Board’s budget, it will pass anyway. Nobody has ever explained how THAT will come to pass, since City Council always passes it.

A final excuse is if the school budget doesn’t pass, it will delay or cancel altogether our “summer school” program.

Last year’s “summer school” was an unmitigated disaster. Most of the kids who were supposed to attend never showed up, despite the administration attempting to fake the data, claiming that almost everyone showed up.

Odd, that.

This year, Carolee Conklin, running for re-election to City Council, stated that she would NOT vote against the budget this year to protest the state mandates, as she had done the previous eight years ( see above for “Romantic Self Indulgence” ).

Rather, she would vote FOR the School Board’s budget as a sign of solidarity.

Really? Solidarity with whom? Certainly not with the taxpayers who get stuck paying for our disastrous schools, nor the schoolchildren who are victimized by it.

No, Conklin’s solidarity is with that oppressed, overpaid minority: elected officials and their appointed hangers-on, whose tender little egos need to be caressed by cheap accolades after receiving much deserved criticism.

The School Board’s budget was never in any danger of being defeated anyway.

The Rochester City School District will continue to function ( or malfunction ) as it has been doing for years.

People with the wherewithal to leave as soon as their children reach school age will continue to do so, or find private schools in which to enroll their children.

The taxpayers who remain will still be footing the bill for something that doesn’t work.

And of the children who remain in the Rochester City School District? Most will never graduate. They are victims, pawns in a political chess match.

The Rochester Republican Elephant: A species rushing headlong towards extinction?

On March 22, 2013, Rochester City Council President, the Honorable Lovely A. Warren, Esquire, made her public announcement that she would be running for the office of mayor.

It was covered by all of the local news media.

That night, TV 8 News aired their footage of the event on their 5 PM broadcast ( which actually started at 5:30, owing to network coverage of a sporting event ).

Following that news story, TV 8 News then briefly stated that Monroe County GOP chairman Bill Reilich said that the Republicans would be running a candidate for mayor. Reilich was to make the identity of their candidate known within 60 days.

Then, silence.

There has been no further mention of a Republican candidate for mayor of Rochester.

Reilich’s self-imposed 60 day deadline expired yesterday.

The Monroe County GOP’s website offers no information whatsoever about the Republicans running candidates for any city offices. And while that website is usually current and kept up to date, it has concentrated on the perpetual occurrences of scandals going on in Albany, as well as listing the Republican candidates for the elections in the towns and villages of Monroe County. After all, the Monroe County GOP is suburban oriented.

There is nothing about Rochester.

As for the Rochester Republican Committee, which is presumably the committee most concerned with Rochester politics, their website is hopelessly stale and outdated. The only “news” there is the invitation to the Rochester Republican Committee’s annual fundraiser, the “Hooley,” which took place in the middle of March!

There is nothing whatsoever about the impending November election on the Rochester Republican Committee’s website. That might be in keeping with the secrecy practiced by what is left of their “executive board,” akin to the paranoia prevalent in the Nixon White House. Or perhaps, like any other bankrupt concern, they simply have nothing to say.

Yesterday ( May 21 ) the D&C’s Jessica Alaimo printed a brief note about the Republicans. According to Alaimo, “No GOP candidates for city offices have been announced yet, though county party chairman Bill Reilich said a City Council and a school board candidate will likely emerge.”

“Will likely emerge?”

There is no hint as to who those two candidates might be. Not that they have offered any appreciable support for Republican candidates running for office in Rochester in the recent past. Nor was there any further mention of a Republican candidate for mayor of Rochester.

Which begs the question, why did Reilich bring up running a Republican candidate in the first place on March 22?

Mind you, there is still time for the Republicans to come up with some prospective candidates for the nine purely city offices up for grabs.

Only, at this stage of the game, the announcement of such candidates would seem rather anti-climax. And really kind of an afterthought.

So, where are the Republicans?

Well, in the county, they are doing just fine!

The Republicans control the governments of all county towns and villages save one, the exception being the Town of Brighton.

The Republicans are also the majority in the Monroe County Legislature, where the suburban orientation of the Republican legislators is unmistakable. And, secure in their majority in that body, the Republicans are merrily engaged in a passive-aggressive war of attrition with the Democratic minority there.

This seems rather foolish, since the Democrats have just enough legislators to block Republican sponsored bond issues. Not that the Democrats have drawn upon their only strength in that respect.

Republican city leader Thomas V. Fiorilli: Should he hold a "Going Out Of Business" sale for the Rochester Republican Committee?

As for the City of Rochester, that is another matter.

The Grand High Poobah of the Rochester Republican Committee is city leader Thomas V. Fiorilli. Fiorilli serves as city leader solely at the pleasure of Reilich, whose suburban orientation is without question. Both of these gentlemen feel that the ten thousand plus registered Republicans still resident in Rochester could best be put to use raising money and manpower for suburban Republican candidates, rather than seriously participate in the body politic of Rochester. This has become the Rochester Republican Committee’s only reason for existence, reducing it to the level of a small “Third Party,” and rendering it politically impotent in Rochester. They are no longer one of the two “Great Parties” in our fair city.

This is underscored by the fact that the Green Party has produced a slate of five politically and socially active candidates for the nine offices up for grabs in Rochester this election year. The Green Party doesn’t have nearly the number of registered voters or the resources that the Republicans still have in Rochester, but that hasn’t stopped them from participating in Rochester’s body politic. And their candidates are reasonably well known in Rochester.

So, where are the Republicans?

As I have already stated, in Monroe County, they are doing just fine. In the City of Rochester, they are moribund and no longer a thing to be taken seriously. They certainly aren’t even attempting to replace their discredited leaders.

Perhaps Fiorilli can host a “Going Out Of Business” sale for the Rochester Republican Committee.

The Green Party candidates, left to right: Dorothy Paige ( City Council ), Lori Thomas ( School Board ), Drew Langdon ( City Council ), David Atias ( City Council ).

Ordinarily, election years for purely city offices in Rochester tend to be rather tawdry affairs.

That’s the way it goes in a one-party town.

In Rochester’s Democratically monopolized Citygov and School Board, the incumbents continually seek re-election, citing the “wonderful work” they have done to “turn the city around,” even when it’s patently obvious that they have done no such thing.

Any opposition to the Democratic incumbents has to come from within their own party.

Usually, there is a surfeit of such Democratic opposition to the incumbents, arguing that they can do a better job of governing the city.

That might be true enough…during campaign season.

But for no good, sane reason, incumbents are re-elected to office despite their failures, while the voters then scratch their heads and wonder how they got back in!

It’s simple enough: they were voted back in by the same people who criticize them!

Being in good with the party machine always helps incumbents, no matter how badly they have performed in office. And their fellow Democrats who dared to run against them? Well, they are seen as “black sheep.”

Unfortunately, this is usually the only form of dissent in our one-party town, and it isn’t appreciated by the incumbents.

And, frankly, how much experience does it take for City Councilmen to rubber stamp the current mayor’s wishes?

As for the School Board, for years they have presided over the disintegration of the Rochester City School District with no real improvements in sight, despite the claims of this year’s crop of incumbents seeking re-election, claiming that they are finally on the right track.

Where have they been all these years?

And the Republicans? They have long since abdicated as one of the two “great political parties” in Rochester. Recently, whenever some brave individuals seeking to change the city under the Republican line have sought elective office in Rochester, they have done so at their own peril, without the support of their party’s machine.

To date, for the 2013 Election, we have a Democratic incumbent mayor ( Tom Richards ) being challenged by the Democratic City Council President the Honorable Lovely A. Warren, Esquire.

Green Party candidate for mayor Alex White: "This slate of Green Party candidates will give Rochester an option not seen in years!"

Alex White, long a fixture in Rochester politics and one of the severest critics of one-party rule here, is the Green Party’s candidate for the mayoral throne.

Despite the fact that Monroe County GOP Chairman Bill Reilich stated that the Republicans would be running a candidate for mayor ( to TV 8 News on March 22 ), and that he would make the candidate’s identity public within 60 days, there has been no news from that quarter yet.

Tick, tick, tick…

As I have already stated, there are numerous Democratic challengers to the Democratic incumbents seeking re-election to City Council and the School Board. While the Democratic machine has made short work of them in the endorsement process, there will still be a Democratic primary for those offices in September.

This, too, is usual.

However, today ( May 1 ) in front of City Hall, the Green Party announced its slate of candidates for City Council and the School Board: for City council, David Atias, Drew Langdon and Dorothy Paige; for School Board, Lori Thomas.

All of these candidates have been actively involved in Rochester for years, whether it be in business, education or social work.

Today, the Green Party candidates expressed their unanimous frustration with Citygov, of how the Democratic monopoly in Citygov has failed Rochester, of how Citygov is incapable of instituting change because there is no real reason for them to do so.

The status quo suits the Democratic incumbents just fine!

Alex White, the Green Party’s candidate for mayor, stated that he was delighted to be standing with a whole group of Green Party candidates, rather than running alone.

Furthermore, Alex said “These candidates will give Rochester an option not seen in years!”

That’s true enough; Monroe County GOP Chairman Bill Reilich hasn’t announced that there will be Republican candidates for any of the five City Council seats or the three School Board seats up for grabs.

Furthermore, the three Green Party candidates for City Council stated that they would NOT be mere rubber stamps for the mayor, whoever he or she turns out to be. Even Alex.

Nor would they seek to pass legislation which has been found to be illegal and unconstitutional, as has been the repeated habit of City Council.

Pro small business, pro “green friendly” solutions to city living, pro-neighborhoods. That is what they support.

And Lori Thomas?

Having been a teacher at Lincoln School#22, she is upset with the practice of corporate education that is prevalent in the Rochester City School District that does NOT concentrate on our children. Lori is also in favor of a return to neighborhood schools.

More information about the Green Party candidates can be found on Green Rochester’s website: www.greenrochester.org .

The Green Party is at least providing an alternative to one-party rule in Rochester. It behooves us, as presumably well-informed citizens, to at least listen to what they have to say and offer.

And the definition of stupid: doing the same failed things over and over and over again, expecting a different outcome each time.

Rochester's School Board: Where student truancy is concerned, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree!

The Rochester City School District is both a pathetic joke and a disgrace.

Our city’s public schools are among the worst in the state, if not THE worst!

We have low math and verbal scores. We have a high drop-out rate. We have a low graduation rate. Even those who somehow graduate from our city schools, fifty percent of those who go onto Monroe Community College need to take remedial reading and writing courses.

In short, many of those students lucky enough to graduate aren’t prepared to take their places either in the job market or in higher education.

Then, there’s truancy.

City residents have long suspected that there was a high truancy rate among Rochester’s students. In August, 2012, Dr. Bolgen Vargas, Rochester’s Superintendent of Schools, made a shocking admission: probably up to 50% of city students are truant on any given day!

Apart from having a news crew follow Dr. Vargas while he took a truant student to school late last year, nothing has been done to address that problem.

And, apparently, that apple doesn’t fall far from the School Board’s own tree.

Sunday, March 3 ( today ) the D&C released one of its occasional “watchdog reports.” The subject was none other than the School Board’s own truancy and lateness. Apparently, our elected officials on the School Board can’t even meet the “acceptable” absenteeism rate they set for students.

For this they are compensated to the tune of $23,000 each per year. School Board President Malik Evans receives $30,000. In return, they were supposed to meet 27 times during 2012.

Hmmm. $23,000 divided by 27. You do the math.

For all of the board members, this is only a part-time job. And it shows.

The D&C stated that this part-time job pays more than the median income for most Rochesterians who work full-time!

Why are we paying them so much for producing such an obviously shoddy product?

There is a similar situation concerning Rochester’s City Council.

City Council Legislative Assistant Chuck Stechna found it necessary to remind the Charlotte Community Association at their January 7th meeting that City council was only a “part-time position.”

THAT part-time position pays $33,000 apiece per year, well above Rochester’s median income for full-time work, which Mr. Stechna failed to mention.

As for being “only” part-time, it is what they have made of it…or what we have allowed it to become.

One presumes that the members of the School Board and City Council are paying better attention to their “real” jobs than they are to their part-time jobs. After all, they are crafty enough to know that once they are incumbents, being re-elected in generally a shoe-in, whether they deserve it or not!

The D&C also pointed out that Rochester’s School Board gets paid far more than two other cities in Western New York.

Buffalo, the second largest city in the state ( and on life support from Albany ), pays its school board members $5,000 apiece.

Syracuse pays theirs $7,500.

In smaller school districts, school board seats are voluntary positions.

Our school district, the worst of the lot, pays $23,000! For what? To provide the School Board with a nice bit of pocket change that is more than most people make here?

Obviously, we aren’t getting more bang for our buck from either the School Board OR our City Council. Which is why most of the elected officials on those “august” bodies seek re-election year after year…with no real improvements is sight. And we, stupidly enough, keep putting ‘em back into office year after year, which doesn’t say much for we, the voters.

The debate over mayoral control of the schools has seemed to die a natural death. It failed in every city where it was implemented. Other people argued that mayoral control would take away our right to elect a School Board, and was therefore “undemocratic.”

But what does it say about democracy when we keep electing the same people who have made a mess of our schools for the last generation or so? And the Rochester City School District is a decided mess.

This year, Rochester will elect at least three seats to the School Board. The incumbents are, of course, seeking re-election for no good reason.

However, there will be challengers for those seats. Mia Hodgins is seeking the Democratic nod to run. There will undoubtedly be people from the smaller third parties seeking to run, as well.

The Republicans, of course, won’t be concerning themselves ( again ) with seriously running any candidates for city offices.

Where does that leave us?

Well, it’s time to clean house and seriously consider electing new people to Rochester’s School Board. It’s time to send an icy wind blowing into the hermetically sealed chambers of Rochester’s School Board. As with soiled diapers, it is definitely time for a change!

And once the incumbents have been sent packing, they can easily find other part-time jobs…that pay minimum wage, like those that the majority of the constituents have.

There will be seats coming up for re-election on our hopelessly inept School Board, whose antics ( coupled with those of the Superintendent of Schools that they hired ) have produced one of the worst school systems in New York State…if not the worst. People complain about that, but the incumbents have nothing to fear: they know that the same people will be too lazy to run and support alternative candidates, so the status quo on the School Board will remain unchanged.

The same holds true for the five city council seats at large that are coming up for re-election. The incumbents have nothing to fear but their own records of failure, which voters always seem to forget the minute they walk into their polling places. Of course, since it is an election year, the various neighborhood and community groups can expect the incumbents to show up at their meetings, rarely, if ever, to see them again once they have been re-elected.

Since Rochester is a one-party town, monopolized by the Democrats, any serious threats to the incumbents seeking re-election will be coming from within the Democratic Party. This will require a primary election, since there are always a surfeit of Democrats seeking political office. And when the smoke clears, the slate of candidates looks pretty much like it did before.

The small third parties don’t cut much political ice in Rochester, except perhaps to endorse Democratic candidates. The Monroe County GOP has long since abandoned Rochester, secure in its control of the county government. For concerned city Republicans seeking political office in Rochester, well, they will have to do it on their own with no real support from the county GOP.

In short, there should be no real surprises come November 2013.

Of course, the office of the mayor comes up for election this year. And Rochester’s current mayor will undoubtedly run again.

This accounts for the Democrats’ recent attempts to build up the image of the current mayor, to create a “cult of personality” about him, in line with the “cult of personality” the county GOP has built up around County Executive Maggie Brooks. Since the current mayor has been in office for less than two years, and his “successes” are dubious at best, such a cult doesn’t seem merited.

But, it might be seen as necessary, since the current mayor got less than fifty percent of the vote during the so-called “special election” in 2011!

This explains why Citygov is hell-bent to continue its “vision” ( which is probably a hallucination ) to re-invent downtown Rochester: it will provide them with a platform to run their re-election campaigns. Never mind that any plans for downtown redevelopment envisioned by Citygov over the last generation have been stunning failures.

The current “vision” of Citygov is to redevelop the hole left by demolishing Midtown Mall ( the result of the last failed “vision” by the current lieutenant governor when he was mayor of Rochester ) and create a “Potemkin Village” on the site and its environs. While it sounds good ( and so many other failures to reinvent downtown sounded good, too, at first ), the end result seems to create an elitist enclave in the heart of the City of Rochester, while the poorest of Rochester’s four quadrants ( the Northeast district ) is less than a mile away!

However, Citygov is encouraging “the people” to take part in the discussions about downtown’s re-creation. What real effect, if any, has yet to be seen.

Recently, some representatives of Citygov met with the Maplewood Neighborhood Association’s Board of Directors. The meeting was ostensibly to discuss how to improve the quality of life in Maplewood, and how to address the problems of increasing incidents of crime, youth violence and slumlords. However, it was strongly suggested that the neighborhood leaders involve themselves in the future discussions about downtown redevelopment because, in Citygov’s opinion, a strong downtown is good for the neighborhoods!

Really? Especially since the neighborhoods have gotten used to the fact that there hasn’t been a thriving downtown in over a generation? And wouldn’t a major focus on downtown’s redevelopment detract from the concern over already troubled neighborhoods, where the majority of people are poor, elderly or people of color and are victims of Rochester’s infamously high crime rate?

Oddly enough, plans for redeveloping downtown Rochester have been going on for a very long time. All have ultimately met with failure.

The creation of Midtown Mall was the ultimate expression of reinventing downtown. Opening its doors in the early 1960′s, it is now a hole upon which Citygov hopes to build its Potemkin Village.

The historic RKO Palace, torn down in 1965. An earlier attempt to "reinvent" downtown, it still remains a parking lot!

Yet, when Midtown was going up, the old RKO Palace movie theatre was coming down. The RKO Palace was located on the northwest corner of North Clinton Avenue and Mortimer Street. A true Rochester landmark, hearkening back to the days of vaudeville, it was appointed with carved and gilded wood staircases, crystal chandeliers and balconies. It was representative of a more gracious time when Rochester was rich and downtown was the destination! The RKO Palace was torn down in 1965 to make way for “The Towers” project, which was to consist of shops, restaurants, office space and apartments. It has remained a parking lot all these years, another example of “downtown redevelopment!”

As for the grandiose “Renaissance Square” project, well, all that will remain of that badly bungled plan will be the above-ground “Mortimer Street Bus Barn,” which nobody other than Citygov wants.

That is the problem with reinventing downtown. Private developers wouldn’t touch it unless we gave it away, like Citygov did with the Sibley Building to the Wynn company, and even then there are no guarantees that such developers will actually keep their word, since there is really nothing in writing that will protect the taxpayers of Rochester from yet another costly disaster. This is coming at a time when the annual budget is coming up, when there will undoubtedly be hints at cuts in necessary city services. Our tax base is eroding, we get less state aid than do Buffalo or Syracuse, and having a former mayor of Rochester as lieutenant governor hasn’t brought us any real benefit…just like when he was in office here!

The case for reviving downtown is like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Dr. Frankenstein created a monster by stitching together parts of corpses and imbuing it with a sort of life. The good doctor could not control his creature, who runs rampant and who ultimately destroys him.

It is the same with downtown redevelopment.

A thriving downtown has been dead for a very long time. Seeking to revive it, when legitimate investors won’t, as an elitist enclave to the detriment of Rochester’s already struggling neighborhoods, merely makes we average Rochesterians victims of the monster.

And remember, while the monster killed other people, he never killed Dr. Frankenstein!

Citygov knows this, too! The only ones who will suffer from the curse will be us!

On New Year’s Eve, tens of millions of Americans will be hitting bars, restaurants and nightclubs to ring in the new year. There will be funny hats, noisemakers and, at midnight, half a plastic cup of cheap champagne to celebrate, after drinking prodigious amounts of alcohol during the evening.

Some people refer to New Year’s Eve as “amateur night for drinkers.” And the cops will be out in full force.

Also, various renditions of “Auld Lang Syne” will be playing throughout the day and evening, in keeping with the holiday spirit.

But what reasons do most of us have to be nostalgic about the old year or look forward to the new?

Not many.

The most recent events of 2012 have revealed that America has lost faith with its government and the policing agencies designed to protect us. Certain events can make us angry, but not angry enough. We say we want change, but we are fearful of it. We are too lazy to pursue it, anyway. We can react to tragic events, but our reaction only reinforces our beliefs that we are being failed by our government.

The massacre in Newtown, Connecticut was the result of legally owned weapons being available to a mentally deranged person not authorized to use them. The reaction of many Americans was to rush out and buy more weapons. Some people even advocated arming school guards!

People felt they were let down by the law enforcement agencies.

Some groups, such as the NRA, feel that this incident might result in stiffer gun laws. That the laws currently in effect did not prevent the Christmas Eve Massacre in Webster, New York, does not seem to have made an impression on them whatsoever. Four first responders from the fire department were gunned down, two of them killed, and seven homes went up in flames, the work of a madman with a criminal history who was not supposed to have guns. He got them anyway.

Even the religious lunatics of the Westboro Baptist Church have entered the fray. They wished to show up en masse at the funerals of the victims of the Sandy Hook Massacre ( 20 of whom were schoolchildren ) in protest. Their message: the shootings were God’s wrath over “equal marriage!” They were prevented from doing this, not by the various police agencies in that area, but by the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club, who blocked them from protesting at the funerals.

Once again, people have lost faith in their policing agencies.

Our economy is still a disaster, yet this presidential election was the most expensive in history, costing more than the annual budgets of most third-world nations. We are supposedly on a “fiscal cliff,” yet Congress walked of with its pay raise intact. We have a long term, expensive war going on in Afghanistan that is serving no real purpose, and is us costing American lives daily.

Here in Monroe County and the City of Rochester we can see that loss of faith more closely. Both the County Executive and the Mayor of Rochester claim that they have created tens of thousands of jobs in this area, while never mentioning the tens of thousands of jobs that have left. And Rochester has the seventh highest level of child poverty in the nation.

The County Executive’s recent radio advertisement boasts of our area’s “world-class quality of life.” She fails to mention that Monroe County has the highest level of infant mortality in the state. The County Executive also claims that she has held property taxes flat for the ninth year, but fails to mention that your tax bill will be higher because of the subterfuge of “fees.”

The split in local government, between the Republican dominated County Legislature and the Democratically monopolized Citygov, is frighteningly apparent. The two groups simply won’t work together, and it shows. The county Republicans have long abandoned any serious political participation in Rochester. They see the city as a convenient dumping ground for social issues like halfway houses for people recovering from drug and alcohol addiction, for group homes for people suffering from mental and physical disabilities, for homeless shelters. This keeps the suburbs largely white and pristine.

For the two Republican members of the County Legislature whose districts cross over into the city, who they truly represent is perfectly clear: they vote with their suburban Republican brethren to the detriment of their city constituents.

A more realistic view of the "Old Year" and baby "New Year!"

Then there’s Citygov! Monopolized by the Democrats, Citygov frequently warns Rochesterians that there might have to be severe cuts in essential city services because of budgetary constraints. This does not prevent Citygov from making devil’s bargains with developers that end up costing the city tens of millions of dollars in revenue yearly. This does not also prevent Citygov from borrowing tens of millions of dollars to “loan” to the developers of other projects, such as “Collegetown.”

And the latest plan for downtown redevelopment consists of creating a “Potemkin Village” in the vicinity of the defunct Midtown Mall, to the detriment of the impoverished neighborhoods of the northeast and southwest areas of Rochester.

The county Republicans have already created a nauseating cult of personality about the County Executive. The city Democrats are attempting to do the same for the current mayor of Rochester, though for far fewer good reasons.

Rochester has a reputation for violence; it is the murder capital of New York State. Rochester’s chief of police, James Sheppard, frequently grins impishly before the camera, says most of the murders in Rochester are gang related. Since they occur so frequently, that statement isn’t very reassuring about the police department’s ability to cope with it. Moreover, the police department isn’t able to cope with the youth gangs and drug dealers who roam our streets at any hours of the day or night. This has been a particular problem we have seen on the upswing in Maplewood over the last few years, and we have complained about it frequently, only to be told that there was nothing the police could do about it, except to scatter them. Since these kids regroup a few blocks away, this hasn’t been very effective.

And violence has occurred as a result. Two weeks ago, a rumble of perhaps 40 to 50 kids caused a lockdown at the Maplewood branch of the public library. The staff and the patrons were fearful of their safety, and two people outside were injured.

The dismal state of the Rochester City School District has its share to play in the amount of youth violence that is occurring here. The city schools have the lowest math and verbal scores and the highest drop-out and truancy rate in perhaps the whole state. Dr. Bolgen Vargas, Rochester’s Superintendent of Schools, admitted in August of this year that perhaps as many as 50% of our schoolchildren are truant on any given day, which means the teachers have not been accurately reporting on their attendance. Dr. Vargas also claimed that our verbal and math scores would be higher if the kids were in school. Frankly, it doesn’t require a Ph.D to figure that out. However, Dr. Vargas has been patently unsuccessful in getting these kids back to school, which accounts for the numbers of youth gangs roaming the street during school hours.

As for our elected school board, they have been failing for the last thirty years. They see their job as to get re-elected and possibly move up the political food chain, and not to offend too many people by making any serious changes to the school system. This also means the unbridled opposition of the school board to mayoral control of the schools, which would eliminate them as a body paid for by the taxpayers of Rochester. While mayoral control has failed to improve the schools in every city it has been undertaken, the school boars here has been failing continuously for over a generation.

And the parents? Dr. Vargas likes to point out that many of our truants come from single parent homes, that they move about Rochester a great deal ( so that nobody can keep track of them ) and that some of these children are left in the care of by-blow relations, like grandmothers, who are probably watching other children as well. In short, parents have abdicated their responsibilities while maintaining their “authority,” such as they have.

Yet, we are continually told that the city and the county are “poised on greatness!” But our emperor and our empress are naked, no matter what they or their toadies tell us.

Some well meaning sentimentalists use the by-now banal phrase “it takes a village” to solve all of these problems. But even a functioning village requires a sense of community and a respect for tradition and authority, which our troubled urban youth does not have because there is nobody to provide them with any. Many adults don’t believe in it anymore, either.

As for “political correctness,” that hasn’t really solved anything, either, except to sugar-coat racism, bigotry and prejudice. It hasn’t eliminated them. Not by a long shot.

Yes, we don’t trust our government. We don’t believe in the politicians who run for office. We are tired of the lies.

And, the most galling part of it, WE PUT THEM THERE! And we are too lazy to remove them and make the changes necessary to put us back on the right track. Too many of us are too lazy not to vote a straight ticket at election time.

Those of us who live in the City of Rochester have long known that our public school system is a failure. Less than 50% of our students graduate; most of those who do are not prepared to transition into higher education or our declining workforce. This is NOT because our schoolchildren are stupid; most of them have access to smartphones which they can operate from Kindergarten onwards with the skill of bomber pilots. The fact that most Rochester City School graduates going to MCC require remedial reading and writing courses at the college before they can actually take college courses should have alerted our officials to this problem long ago.

Blaming the school board does no good, because, for no good reason, we keep re-electing them. This doesn’t say much for the intelligence of the voters.

Blaming the teachers and the teachers’ union is another hobby of disgruntled Rochesterians. Obviously, the teachers aren’t doing their jobs! Or there aren’t enough “minority” teachers who can relate to the “minority” students, who are the majority of the students in the Rochester City School District.

But does it really matter what the racial composition of our teaching staff is when students simply do not show up at school? Can any teacher teach anything successfully when the students themselves aren’t there?

Today, the D&C dropped a bombshell: the truancy rate in the Rochester City School District might be as high as 50% on any given day!

We have long known that the truancy rate in the city schools has been high, but a 50% truancy rate is unacceptable. It is also unacceptable that our school system’s administrative staff has just recently become aware of it.

Where have they been all this time?

A 50% truancy rate. A less than 50% graduation rate. And of those who graduate, 50% are discovered to be functionally illiterate when pursuing higher education! What part of Oz are we living in?

“If we don’t know how many kids are in school we have no idea how well our programs are working,” quoth the mayor of Rochester!

Superintendent of Schools Boltan Vargas drew a “stunning” conclusion from this data: truancy is ultimately responsible for students doing poorly in our schools, for students failing standardized testing and ultimately dropping out of school!

Yuh think?

Either teachers aren’t taking attendance anymore, or whatever system they use to compile this data has serious glitches when entered into a computer.

Of course, “reasons” were quickly offered as to why kids were truant.

One “reason” is that their parents had transportation issues and couldn’t get them to school. Which is why we need to bring neighborhood schools back into play. Some people will argue that many neighborhood schools are bad, that’s why they choose schools that are further away from where their children live! It hasn’t dawned upon anybody that we ought to fix “bad” schools so that they all function equally as well as the “good” schools.

Another reason is that some kids have to stay at home to watch their younger siblings. I always thought that it was illegal to allow anyone under the age of twelve such responsibility.

Of course, nobody has bothered to ask “Where are the parents?”

And nobody is considering the most obvious possibility: that the kids are simply playing hooky. The hordes of school-aged kids roaming the streets during school hours seem to bear out THAT explanation.

Whatever happened to truant officers?

What’s amusing about this whole mess is that all of the officials, elected or appointed, who are involved in the administration of the Rochester City School District make a helluva lot of money; that’s why we are supposed to consider them to be smarter than the rest of us. But they are going to bog themselves down with administrative trivia and ask “Why aren’t the kids coming to school” rather than get out there and make them come to school.

Contributors

Click on a blogger to see just their posts.

Rich Gardner has been writing about the history, culture and waterways of Upstate New York for years. His articles have appeared in U.S. and Canadian publications, and one book, Learning to Walk. He is an alumnus of Brighton High School and SUNY Geneseo. He operates Upstate Resume & Writing Service in Brighton and recently moved to Corn Hill, where he is already involved in community projects. "I enjoy the 'Aha!' moments of learning new things, conceptual and literal. City living is a great teacher."

Ken Warner grew up in Brockport and first experienced Rochester as a messenger boy for a law firm in Midtown Tower. He recently moved downtown into a loft on the 13th floor of the Temple Building with a view of the Liberty Poll and works in the Powers Building overlooking Rochester’s four corners as Executive Director for UNICON, an organization devoted to bringing economic development to the community. He hopes to use his Rochester Blog to share his observations from these unique views of downtown.